Moderna sues Pfizer and BioNTech over coronavirus vaccine

Pfizer and BioNTech are accused of plagiarizing technology from Moderna in the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States.

The lawsuit was going to be filed in US district court in Massachusetts and the regional court of Dsseldorf in Germany.

The CEO of Moderna said in the statement that they are filing lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that they pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the Covid-19 epidemic.

Pfizer and BioNTech formed a partnership to develop a vaccine for the coronaviruses.

The Covid-19 vaccine was developed in record time after Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was an innovator in the messengerRNA vaccine technology.

Thanks to the breakthrough in vaccine technology, an approval process that used to take years has been completed in months.

When it worked with Pfizer, Germany's BioNTech had also been doing this.

Emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccine was granted by the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2020.

Pfizer/BioNTech is accused of copying a technology that Moderna had patented between 2010 and 2016 before Covid-19 exploded into global consciousness in 2020.

Moderna said it wouldn't enforce its Covid-19 patents in order to help others develop their own vaccines.

Pfizer and BioNTech were expected to respect Moderna's intellectual property rights. Damages will not be sought before March 8, 2022.

In the early days of new technology, there are patent litigations.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against Pfizer and BioNTech by other companies who claim the vaccine violates their patents. Pfizer and BioNTech will defend their patents vigorously.

CureVac filed a lawsuit against BioNTech in Germany. BioNTech said that it was original.

Moderna has been sued for patent violation in the US and has an ongoing dispute with the US National Institutes of Health.

Pfizer/BioNTech took two types of intellectual property.

Moderna says its scientists began developing the structure in 2010 and were the first to use it in a human trial.

Options that would have steered clear of Moderna's innovative path were taken into clinical testing by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Moderna said that Pfizer and BioNTech decided to proceed with a vaccine that had the same chemical modification to its vaccine.

Moderna claims that its scientists created a vaccine for the coronaviruses that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) while coding a full-length spikeProtein.

Moderna quickly rolled out its Covid-19 vaccine because of the Mers vaccine's development.